THE 



WILSON BULLETIN 



NO. 58 



A QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ORNITHOLOGY 



VOL. XIX MARCH, 1907 NO. 1 



THE PARID/.E OF GERMANY. 



BY REV. W. F. HENNINGER. 



The Palsearctic Region has many forms of this family when 

 compared with the Nearctic. Setting aside subspecific niceties 

 — and as long as subspecies do not differ appreciably from the 

 species proper biologically I do not see the reason for laying 

 so much stress upon the distinctions in life history sketches of 

 birds — there are just nine species of titmice proper found in 

 the old Fatherland. Of these, however, Cyanistes cyaneus is 

 only a casual visitor from the east, Panurus biarmicus from 

 the southeast, and Remiza petidulina only at rare times a 

 summer resident. This leaves six species for discussion. 



One must either recognize the one genus Parus or must con- 

 sider each species to belong tO' a different genus, and in the 

 light of the points of difference brought out by a thorough 

 scientific investigation it is hard to understand how anything 

 other than the creation of separate genera for each species 

 could be thought of. Parus major, the Big Cole or Great Tit; 

 Periparus ater, the Brown Cole Tit ; Cyanistes coeruleus, the 

 Blue Tit ; Penthestes palustris, the Swamp Tit ; Lophophanes 

 cristatus, the Crested Tit, and finally Aegithalus cauHatus, the 

 Long-tailed Tit. They all differ considerably in coloration, 

 and while I do not wish to inflict a long-winded description of 

 the various species upon the readers of the Bulletin, still the 

 following diagnosis will be necessarv. 



